Blog

Our final day in Nulato and of our trip was bittersweet. Being emerged in this unique and wonderful engagement with new places, people and experiences left me yearning for more. Our experience provided all of us with new friends that seemed like old buddies, new places that would always be an image in our mind, and new experiences that would change our perspectives forever.

After spending four days in the District Office with the awesome teachers, we were excited to meet some of the children who will benefit from the technology workshops we conducted in Fairbanks. Nulato is a small village about 2 hours west of Fairbanks via bush plane. It’s on the Yukon River and is a stop on the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race. There are about 260 inhabitants and about 40 children who attend the Andrew Demoski School. Since school is letting out next Tuesday, we weren’t sure how many kids would be there to attend our mini-workshops on 3D printing, drones, Logo WeDos, Ozobots or Book Creator but we were anxious to get started, no matter how many would show up.

Today was the final day that our group had with the great teachers of the Yukon Koyukuk School District. We finished up the 3D printing session, and then launched into a workshop on Flybrix - lego robotics drone.

The IT sub-team completed their tasks of helping the Alaska school district IT staff patch servers to make them more reliable, replaced broken hard drives, and scanned systems for security issues.

We ended our last day with the teachers with a relaxing dinner over some of us trying out caribou sausage.

A year and a half ago, we began working with Team4Tech on global immersive service projects. We were drawn to their program for two key reasons - one was the impact being made on the ground in the area of education, and the other was the leadership development component of the program for the participants.

We had a lot of success on these early projects, both in regard to the impact we made with the organizations for students on the ground, but also with our employees and their personal and professional growth. The Pure Good Foundation board was pleased with the results, but drove home another point - if we can do this around the world, what can we do domestically to help, utilizing this same model? Working with Team4Tech, we were able to scope out a project in rural Alaska, training teacher on utilizing edtech in their classroom in the rural interior of Alaska, as well as helping them solve some of the IT issues they needed assistance on.

By Nicole Johnson, Executive Director of Pure Good Foundation and participant on Alaska 2018 project

On day 2 of the Pure Storage project with the Yukon-Koyukuk School District (YKSD), the Pure Storage team kick-started the intensive four-day teacher technology workshops. Chane, YKSD's Director of Teaching and Learning, started with ice-breaker introductions and gave an overview about project-based learning. Two Pure Storage team members, Carol and Jay, then went into three different technology tools - Microsoft Sway, Book Creator, and WeVideo - to help teachers find different mediums to allow their students to express themselves. But there was a twist to the day."I came here to teach and instead I am being taught so who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?", John, another Pure Storage team member reflects upon the day.

Many thanks to Kristen Bales for creating this awesome Adobe Spark presentation summarizing her experience on our recent project in Kayamandi, South Africa! You can look back at her blog series leading up to and during the project here.

We are on Day 2 on our Colombian adventure! Today’s stop—Comuna 1, a neighborhood lying on the outskirts of mountainous Medellin. We headed out from the city’s center in the morning with Build Change, taking the metro and a public system of gondolas to reach the valley’s surrounding hills. Along our ride, the houses noticeably changed from those located in the city center—everything from the roofing style to the building materials to the exterior layout.

I’m starting the day with a huge smile, arriving at Makupula High School. Our white vanpool carrier arrives at 10am.Charles the headmaster is standing in front of the entrance to his office, briefing a member of his staff. He turns and waves. For the past few days, the network connectivity and wireless fidelity has been in a state of flux, but just as the school administration carries on forward, the Team4Tech team surges forward towards the computer lab with determination and excitement.